2025 City Elections: This Tuesday at 8 p.m., the 17 candidates will debate.

With no fewer than 17 candidates , the debate between the top candidates for Buenos Aires City legislators in the elections to be held on Sunday, May 18, will take place this Tuesday, April 29th . The debate will begin at 8:00 p.m. and will be broadcast on Canal de la Ciudad, although the signal may be picked up simultaneously by other stations free of charge.

The meeting is mandatory, according to the Buenos Aires Electoral Code since 2018. It will be called "Legislative Proposal" and must be attended by the first place candidate on each of the lists that will compete in the elections that the head of government, Jorge Macri , decided to advance when the Buenos Aires Legislature approved the suspension of the Open, Simultaneous and Mandatory Primaries.

Each candidate will have one minute for their initial presentation , followed by another two minutes in a thematic section—Legislative Proposal—for a specific initiative. Afterward, each candidate will receive three questions from one of the other candidates and must answer them in a maximum of two minutes. The questioners will be determined by lottery. The debate will conclude with a one-and-a-half-minute presentation from each candidate.

In these elections, in which half of the chamber (30 of the 60 legislators) will be elected , 17 lists will compete . The first to speak in the debate will be the Federal Patriotic Front, headed by César Biondini . Manuel Adorni of La Libertad Avanza will be in second place, and Lucille "Lula" Levy of Evolución Federal (the Radical Party branch that answers to National Senator Martín Lousteau) will be in third place.

Next up will be Buenos Aires Primero, which, with PRO national deputy Silvia Lospennato , represents the ruling party in Buenos Aires City. Following this will be Seamos Libres (the dissident Peronist party led by Juan Manuel Abal Medina); Volvamos Buenos Aires (Let's Return to Buenos Aires), the party led by Horacio Rodríguez Larreta ; the New Generation Movement (led by ex-libertarian Mila Zurbriggen); Confluencia (led by engineer María Eva Koutsovitis); the Left Front ( led by Vanina Biasi ); and the Libertarian Porteña Union (led by liberal legislator Yamil Santoro ).

They will be followed by It's with You (with Paula Oliveto of the Civic Coalition); Principles and Values ​​(the party of former Secretary of Commerce Guillermo Moreno, led by Alejandro Kim ); The Left in the City (Federico Winokur); It's Now Buenos Aires, which represents Peronism with Leandro Santoro ; Liberty and Order ( Ramiro Marra ); The Integration and Development Movement ( Ricardo Caruso Lombardi ); and the Plural Movement (with Marcelo Peretta, leader of the Argentine Union of Pharmacists and Biochemists).

The order of speakers will change for the other segments of the debate. If any of the speakers at the top of the list does not attend and does not properly justify their absence , the political party to which they belong will receive a fine equivalent to 10,000 fixed units, which currently represents $7,316,200 . There is also the possibility that they may be replaced by the second speaker on the list, if they can justify their reason for not attending.

EM/ML